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Raising Awareness About Our #1 Killer
National Women's Heart Week February 1-7 is an outreach program
that combines fun, free activities with heart
health screenings. By partnering with local organizations, we can help
women come together and encourage fitness, promote stress
reduction activities and learn about heart-healthy eating and gender-specifics
on women's heart disease.
The 7 focus days of Women's Heart Week promote
prevention, education, symptoms awareness and early intervention.
An Important Message for Women:
Heart Disease is the number one killer of American women. Recognizing symptoms
and risks, making lifestyle changes and getting timely care
can save a woman's life. Women's Heart Week is a national outreach
campaign aimed at improving women's outcomes from this deadly
disease. Heart disease is America’s leading killer of
women over the age of 34. Most women are not aware of this
fact and fail to recognize their own risk factors for
heart disease. Women’s symptoms, especially those
that are milder, often go ignored. Women often miss out
on critical opportunites to save their own lives.
Women's Heart Foundation (WHF) recognizes that women are busier than ever as they
juggle career, family and care-giving responsibilities.
For many, each day resembles a jig–saw puzzle in which
a woman is required to piece together her time and obligations.
Now, more than ever, women need to take time out for
themselves and be given a reminder: Take Care of Your Heart.
To Healthcare Providers:
WHF is always looking for
new health partners to implement its programs
and is proud to welcome Curves® for Women, Slim & Tone, Slender
Lady, Shapes USA and other women's fitness clubs as new
participants for this outreach. WHF provides collateral materials
with bookmarks, promotional gifts and a woman's health tracker
card. WHF also provides a sample heart risk screening tool
for free download. This screening tool with procedure for follow-up has been piloted
by a leading healthcare institution. Although the tool is copyrighted,
WHF conveys free use of the material, so long as
acknowledgement is provide the author: The Women's Heart Foundation.
This tool may be modified and revised in accordance with your individual
institution's guidelines and WHF accepts no responsibity for
the reliability of the screening tool.
Your target audience is women of all ages seeking better
heart health care for themselves and their families. Let us hear
from you by January 1 so we can post your event on our website. And
please send us a report about the outcome of your event(s).
Focus Days
The WHF urges hospitals across the country to open
their doors to women during National Women's Heart Week to offer free heart
screenings and healthy lifestyle counseling, starting
February 1 - National Women's Heart Wellness Day, and to
combine these screenings with other heart health activities
for the entire family so that a woman will be able to participate
without feeling conflicted about the amount of time spent
away from home.
Follow the 7 Focus Days of
Women's Heart Week as a guide for holding a successful
outreach event with vendors and activities all coming
together for promotion of women's heart health.
The Focus Day topics represent a holisitic
approach to women's heart wellness and awareness and include
Feb 1: Risk and Symptoms Awareness
Feb 2: Exercise and Fitness
Feb 3: Nutrition and Supplements
Feb 4: Holistic Health and Stress Management
Feb 5: Medication Safety
Feb 6: Health Care Self-Management
Feb 7: Positive Self-Image
Sixteen hospital partners in New Jersey implemented
some form of the Women's Heart Week program
in 2004, and this number continues to grow. In 2005,
WHF partnered with the St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center
and the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, NJ for a Saturday program
exposing 40,000 shoppers to a critical
health message with 360 women receiving heart risk
screenings by hospital nursing personnel.
Statistics on Overweight Adults and Children and Reported Activity Levels
Less than one-third (31.8 percent) of U.S. adults get regular
leisure-time physical activity (defined as light or moderate
activity five times or more per week for 30 minutes or more
each time and/or vigorous activity three times or more per week
for 20 minutes or more each time). About 10 percent of adults
do no physical activity at all in their leisure time.[1]
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight (BMI > 25, which includes those who are obese).[7]
All adults (20+ years old): 129.6 million (64.5 percent)
Women (20+ years old): 64.5 million (61.9 percent)
Men (20+ years old): 65.1 million (67.2 percent)
Nearly one-third of U.S. adults are obese (BMI > 30).
All adults (20+ years old): 61.3 million (30.5 percent)
Women (20+ years old): 34.7 million (33.4 percent)
Men (20+ years old): 26.6 million (27.5 percent)[2]
About 25 percent of young people (ages 12–21 years) participate
in light to moderate activity (e.g., walking, bicycling)
nearly every day. About 50 percent regularly engage in
vigorous physical activity. Approximately 25 percent report
no vigorous physical activity, and 14 percent report no recent
vigorous or light to moderate physical activity.[3]
Interestingly, according to disease reports from the New York Department of Health
and the 2004 Women's Heart Day program in Manhattan, while diabetes rates are soaring around the country,
the incidence of diabetes in lower Manhattan is going down. Why?
The average New Yorker walks four miles a day! What better evidence to support the launch of a 10,000 steps campaign in every community?
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